


Quickening

by princess_charles



Category: Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve
Genre: Gen, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princess_charles/pseuds/princess_charles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the stalker fang awakens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quickening

**Author's Note:**

> it's past midnight. i have too many emotions. there has been exactly 0 proofreading. i shouldn't be writing this, let alone POSTING. but here we are.

\- and then there's light and sound and they hit like a fist like a club (like a blade through the ribs) and something almost like pain but not exactly pain (standing over her as she bleeds hot into freezing snow) less anything damaging than just the foreign sensation of being (bright lights and the knowledge of ending) and something’s yelling wailing screaming a wordless void of uncontrolled sound and it takes a minute to realise that she’s the source (no miss fang you can’t die you can’t) and nothing hurts but everything IS -

\- and then something changes, some switch deep inside her is flicked, and senses are no longer such alarming things to deal with having.

She opens her eyes. (Or, rather, the area of her circuitry which governs the collection of visual data activates the cameras that sit where her eyeballs once did, but that’s automatically replaced with something more understandable.)

She is lying down, roughly horizontal, and there are two figures standing before her. One is of medium height, with short greenish-black hair and slanted eyes and skin shading to a light brown; the other is paler, short, snub-featured, no hair visible. Both are dressed in long white coats. (Her facial recognition software captures, processes and stores them automatically.) The taller one is staring at her intently, and says very suddenly, in a language she understands instantly, “Doctor? Doctor, I think she’s stable. The sound has stopped and the cameras appear to be focusing - Doctor?”

The short one, the Doctor, seems not to be listening. He (he? Her software runs cross-checks of his body shape against the set of his face against records on the language, and yes, he/his pronouns are assumed) has shuffled round to behind her, picking up some kind of metal tool with a tiny *clng* sound, and now she can feel him making adjustments to the ports she somehow know to be parts of her skull. “You may want to call Sathya, my friend,” he says, addressing the tall one. “I think there’s been a major breakthrough.”

The tall one leaves, and it’s just her and the Doctor.

She lies silently for a short moment, absorbing the details of where she is. They appear to be in a laboratory of some sort, set up in a cave. Rough stone curves above her, wall to ceiling to wall, metal benches bolted to the sides. They're covered in tools, spare parts, what appears to be oil mixing with blood.

And then it hits her: what of her body?

She raises her head slightly, trying to get a view of herself. Behind her, the Doctor makes a tutting sound and firmly pushes her head back down. "I don't think now is the time for you to see yourself, Miss Fang," he tells her. "Not just yet."

The words leave her mouth like they're being torn straight from her throat, a snakeskin husk of a voice abrasive from disuse. "What... where... I... am I?"

"Ah, replacement vocal unit fully functional," says the Doctor, seemingly ignoring the questions. "Sathya will tell you everything."

Silence, and then she hears sounds coming into the laboratory: footsteps mixed with panicked almost-shouting. She identifies three different vocal tones, one of which is the tall one from before. Another is unfamiliar, and the third -

(the third the third she knows the third she could reach out and almost goddamned touch it she knows it's so close -)

\- the third rushes over to where she's lying and, upon seeing her, lets out a small gasping breath noise and claps hands over her mouth. "It - it's you," she says, her voice a squeak. "Gods, Popjoy, she's perfect."

“I try.” There’s a hint of smugness to the Doctor’s - Popjoy’s - voice. “Now, not to interrupt the reunion or anything, but she’s pretty keen on hearing everything, and I think she’s stable enough to process it.”

“Yes! Yes, I - yes, of course.” The third lets out a shaky breath (she can sense the third’s heartbeat, and it’s skittering like claws on steel). “Should we start with death? Identity? Memories? Her new purpose? Her new… bo-”

“Let’s start with identities. Hers and ours. We don’t want her getting confused about who’s on her side, now, do we?” interrupts Popjoy, letting out a nervous kind of chuckle.

“Right. Yes.” The third leans over her, revealing that she’s a dark-skinned young woman with black hair pulled back tight over her skull and an expression on her face that treads the knife-edge between hope and fear. 

(and she’s so familiar so beautiful so beloved)

(she’s right there)

(she’s almost)

“Your name is Anna Fang,” she says, and the nearly-memories flee. “I am Sathya, and this is Dr. Popjoy. We are - ah - Anna, my dearest, this may come as something of a shock -”

“Get on with it,” mutters Popjoy. 

“- you died, and you’ve been resurrected.”

And it’s then that she chooses to look down, to finally inspect herself, to see steel where flesh once was (was it? was it really?) and finally understand the reason it was so painful to be, those first few seconds. She’s - she’s - 

I am the Stalker Fang, whispers the back of her mind, and I am here to lead. It’s a persuasive thought, and she can think of no reason not to give in.

Sathya is still talking frantically, for some reason: “...and we had to make some adjustments to the body, Popjoy insisted, and of course there’s the new memory-tech he’s been developing, so really as soon as we can provide the right environment you’ll regain memories of - of your life before, and you’ll be the Green Storm’s new leader! And -” She breaks off as the Stalker Fang rises tentatively from the bench where she was lying and looks around. 

“Anna - Anna, we’re here, we’re at Rogue’s Roost, you’re safe -”

“Who is this… Anna?” the Stalker Fang enquires. It’s another almost, a concept that stirs vague flutterings in the deeper parts of her circuitry, but it tastes strange in her mouth, tastes wrong.

“You!” Sathya makes a tiny choking noise, and now there’s despair just flickering on the edge of her voice. “You’re Anna! Don’t you remember? You -”

“I… am not Anna,” she says, almost wonderingly, in her sand-dune voice. “Anna is not here. I am the Stalker Fang.”

“No no no no no, you are Anna, you will be as soon as you remember -”

“I am not Anna,” she repeats, growing irritated with this pathetic flesh girl and her whining insistence. “I am the Stalker Fang -”

“Sathya,” mutters Dr. Popjoy, “you may want to move a little away, I don’t think she’s going to remain stable for much longer.” He raises his voice, and yells, “Zero! Zero, we’re going to need reinforcements - no, don’t come in, you silly -” The young man from before, the tall one, darts into the room and to the side of the bench. He’s holding a blunt bronze-coloured pistol, which he hands to Popjoy.

She raises a hand, detachedly considering its perfection; how slim metalled fingers extend gracefully, the curve of an armoured forearm, a wrist clothed in black canvas. 

What happens next isn’t the product of conscious thought, or even of the processing software that seems to have taken its place. Her arm shoots out and settles on Zero’s throat, and before he has time to react, even to cry out, it tightens, and he is lifted effortlessly off the ground, mouth gaping, eyes bulging.

Sathya is screaming, wordless terror given voice, and Popjoy is yelling and more people burst into the laboratory and there are weapons everywhere -

She throws a choking Zero to the side and considers her situation. If forced, she could almost certainly kill all of these flesh people (once-borns, the back of her mind tells her) and find some kind of exit, or transport, or…

And then there’s pressure on the side of her head and Popjoy’s voice says “We’ll have to put her back on ice and wipe her again. Sorry, Sathya, I really thought -” and white noise is flooding into her brain through a tiny point and she screams and it’s death (again) and cold, so cold, she’s bleeding out (no wrong death) and she knows her name she is anna and she is so so sorry and - 

\- and darkness claims her, pulling her into the depths.

**Author's Note:**

> so this is another stopgap fic from my long list of prompts (i came up with them myself. i'm lame like that) and is very heavily reliant on the accounts of shrike being quickened, both in fever crumb and in infernal devices. also it started taking on a distinct winter soldier feel towards the end? i love bucky's flashback thing in catws far too much.  
> AND NOW i'm going to bed so i can start examining parallels between the winter soldier and the stalker fang!!! fun times in trash land!!! (oh my god though??? semi-resurrected assassin pals with memory issues??? i have EMOTIONS) please leave a comment letting me know anything i could have done better, i'm still pretty new to this. join me on board the trash train at officialprincesscharles.tumblr.com .


End file.
